Stand Your Ground Law Makes It Legal To Kill Black Men In Florida.

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A newspaper report has found that the Stand Your Ground self-defense statute in Florida is more likely to succeed when the victim is black.

The Tampa Bay Times looked at 200 cases and found that in instances in which the victim was black, the person who invoked the defense went free 73 percent of the time. If the victim was white, the person walked free 59 percent of the time. The report also found that more than two thirds of all the people who invoked the law were acquitted, and that the defense is being invoked in more and more cases.

"People often go free under 'stand your ground' in cases that seem to make a mockery of what lawmakers intended," wrote the Times reporters. "One man killed two unarmed people and walked out of jail. Another shot a man as he lay on the ground. Others went free after shooting their victims in the back. In nearly a third of the cases the Times analyzed, defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim — and still went free."

Source http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/stand-your-ground-defense-study_n_1575686.html?ref=black-voices

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Florida's Stand Your Ground Law Only Protect Whites Who Pull The Trigger.

Marissa Alexander, the Florida mother of three facing 20 years in prison for firing what her family said was a warning shot at her abusive husband, is anything but a victim, said the state prosecutor who oversaw the case.

“She was angry” when she fired the shot, State Attorney Angela B. Corey told HuffPost. “She was not in fear.”

Alexander, 31, scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, was convicted by the same state attorney's office prosecuting the killing of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager shot to death in February by a neighborhood watch volunteer. Both cases have stirred controversy surrounding Florida's Stand Your Ground gun law, which allows citizens wide discretion in using deadly force to defend themselves. Alexander invoked the law in her unsuccessful defense to aggravated assault charges filed against her in August 2010. Neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman is using it against the second-degree murder charge he faces in Martin's death.

Alexander’s family and a growing legion of her supporters have decried her prosecution by Corey’s office, saying that Alexander is an example of someone standing her ground. Her husband, Rico Gray, 36, admitted in court documents to beating, choking and punching women, including Alexander. "I got five baby-mamas and I put my hands on every last one of them except for one," Gray said in a deposition.

The couple's battle in 2010 left Alexander cornered in the couple’s Jacksonville home. She ran into the garage to escape and was trapped behind a jammed door, she said in court documents. She said she grabbed the gun she kept in the garage, returned to the house and, when Gray threatened to kill her, fired a single shot to ward him off.

Gray fled the home with his two sons and called the police. Alexander was arrested and eventually convicted of three counts of aggravated assault. A judge last weekrejected her appeal for a new trial. She faces sentencing under a Florida law that imposes a mandatory minimum 20-year prison term for certain gun crimes.

Corey said her office considered all the details of the case before moving forward with Alexander’s prosecution. She said the facts don’t support Alexander’s self-defense claim. Just before Alexander went into the garage and retrieved her pistol, she told Gray, “I got something for your ass,” Corey said.

Sourcehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/09/marissa-alexander-prosecutor_n_1504428.html?ref=black-voices

Florida's Stand Your Ground Law Is For Whites Only

It took nearly a year’s worth of violent physical abuse before Marissa Alexanderdecided to stand her ground against her husband.

On Aug. 1, 2010, her husband cornered her in their Jacksonville, Fla., home. Alexander said she ran to the garage to escape, but the garage door was jammed, so Alexander grabbed a pistol. Her husband, Rico Gray, 36, saw the gun and threatened to kill her, Alexander would later say in court documents.

Fearing for her life, she raised the pistol above her head and squeezed the trigger, the crackle of gunfire pelting the kitchen ceiling.

While the shooting may have gotten Alexander out of one jam, it put her in another: She has been in a Florida jail since 2010 awaiting a mandatory sentence of 20 years in prison for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The 31-year-old mother of three has said that she believes she had a legal right to protect herself that day under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which gives citizens expanded rights to use force when threatened with bodily harm. But moments after the shooting, Gray ran outside and called police alleging that Alexander shot at him and his two sons. Alexander was arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Gray later changed his story about the shooting. During a court hearing to determine whether or not Alexander could be protected under the Stand Your Ground Law, Gray said he'd lied during his earlier deposition and that he "begged and pleaded for my life when she had the gun."

A judge rejected Alexander’s Stand Your Ground defense, saying that she could have escaped her attacker "through the front or back door," court records say. The State Attorney’s Office offered her a plea deal that would have sent her to prison for a few years, but she rejected it, hoping to convince a jury that she was defending herself.

Source http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/marissa-alexander-florida-stand-your-ground_n_1472647.html